


Love writes a letter and sends it to Hate

by risinggreatness



Series: Circle 'round the sun [102]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 11:59:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3446354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/risinggreatness/pseuds/risinggreatness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The return of Rush Clovis into Padmé’s work tests Anakin’s resolve as he inches ever close to the Dark Side (TCW s6 retool)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love writes a letter and sends it to Hate

Teckla raises an eyebrow at a Jedi coming to post their bail, but doesn’t say a word. Padmé sometimes wishes Teckla wasn’t so complicit in her boss’s too-intimate relationship with a Jedi, but she hasn’t betrayed Padmé’s loyalty yet.

When her aide is a safe distance ahead of them though, Anakin turns and snaps at her.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“Excuse me?” she hisses back, eyes shooting daggers right back. Anakin can be moody, she’ll grant him, but this is completely uncalled for.

“You both could have been killed, working with Clovis.”

He still smarts over the poisoning – like she doesn’t? _She_ was the one who nearly died, not him.

“Well, we weren’t and it’s fine,” she huffs. “You think I’ll be fooled twice by him, think again, Anakin Skywalker. Teckla’s going back to Naboo and I’m staying –”

“What?” he asks monotone, in an effort to not blow up.

“Aide money needs to come from somewhere and the Republic doesn’t have it now, not with generals who lose and break all the equipment that’s handed to them,” she cuts. He chooses to ignore her.

He makes no effort to shorten his strides, so she must half run to keep up.

His voice is now truly quiet, as if he doesn’t even want her to hear his plea, “At least let me stay on as security.”

It toys dangerously with the distance they try to maintain publicly. Padmé is the first to admit they could do better, and this, well…

Sighing, “All right.”

It gives her a small ache of contentment to see his shoulders straighten ever so slightly.

Levity returned to his voice, though still low, “Besides, it’ll look odd if I charge your account again when you find yourself in a holding cell.”

Padmé manages to stifle a giggle, enough for Teckla to miss it.

Collecting herself, “I still need to speak Rush Clovis after this debacle. I need you to be civil.”

“I’ll be civil if he is,” Anakin shrugs, too noncommittal for lasting comfort.

( _Rush is an affronted snob, Anakin is aggressively defensive; the same damn bounty hunter tracks them down again._

_Padmé braces for impact, hands clutched to the steering._ )

\----------

Anakin can barely wait for the meeting to break up before he starts on Rush’s case again.

Padmé glances over her should to make sure the subject of their discussion is out of range. He’s looking at their retreating backs and quickly moves with the rest when he sees she spots him.

“I don’t trust Clovis.”

“Join the club,” she clips dryly back. “But we have to let him mediate between the Republic and the Banking Clan for now. If that means letting him get close again to find out what he’s up to, I’ll do it.”

Anakin’s face clouds. He cares so little for divided loyalties and undermining; she won’t try to make him understand the politics.

“So where does that put me tonight?”

He is not so put out, as he is resigned.

“Don’t you have a bed Obi-Wan stuffs?” she thinks to herself.

“The Temple – only for tonight though,” she is quick to clarify. She needs his support through this and it is only easier with him at her side.

When they reach the route home no one recognizes them on, Padmé wraps her fingers around his wrist. Anakin almost leans into her, though she finds she can bear his weight.

\----------

Anakin blew into the Temple like a dark storm cloud; Obi-Wan moves after him, entering his room unannounced.

He fiddles with a small ship’s part, ignoring Obi-Wan’s presence at first. If Anakin’s mood wasn’t so tense, the two of them in silence could have been completely natural.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he ventures finally.

“Something wrong?” Anakin asks with false buoyancy.

“You tell me,” he counters in the same tone.

“Not that I’m aware.”

The charade can’t hold up and Obi-Wan knows from experience, the longer Anakin stews, the worse things get.

“You’ve been quite involved with this Rush Clovis business.”

Anakin sighs slightly, weary, “I believe he can’t be trusted.”

Three years and Anakin still harbors jealousy for Padmé’s old flame. If this is to be a true heart-to-heart, it may be the first time Anakin could confess to his face that he and Padmé are married. ( _Nearly six for that burden in all of them._ )

“Yes, but there’s more, isn’t there? I sense a deep anger in you by my simply saying his name,” Obi-Wan pushes.

Anakin doesn’t look up from his work, “He betrayed us.”

_Us_. Anakin and Padmé as one.

“Us? Or do you mean Senator Amidala?”

Curtly, “The Republic.”

Ah, yes, the Republic. Count on Anakin to avoid the heart of it all a little longer, but Obi-Wan will not let him. And Obi-Wan cannot avoid it much longer either.

He sits on the edge of Anakin’s bed, back to him.

In a close voice, “You’ve met Satine. You know I once harbored feelings for her. We are not allowed to have these feelings, but it’s simply natural.”

Too quickly Anakin responds, “I do not have feelings for Senator Amidala!” He slams his work down on the table, as if to emphasis the point.

Obi-Wan leans forward, further away from him. No, Anakin would not be truthful today, just as Obi-Wan would not be truthful either.

The best he can do for his former student is a final piece of advice.

“Be careful.”

\----------

Night falls; Anakin paces his room back and forth.

How could Obi-Wan want him to confess to everything when he blatantly lied to his face?

_Padmé can handle it_ , he reminds himself for the tenth, the hundredth, the thousandth time.

He doesn’t trust Clovis politically as far as Padmé can throw him, but the knot deep down in his gut that seems to grow larger by the second is he doesn’t trust him with Padmé.

At all.

He needs to get out for air.

He stalks through the Temple to no purpose then finds himself in a speeder running through countless streets he knows and doesn’t know.

He doesn’t recognize when he stops at the building and rides the lift up to the last floor.

He’s at the door, muted sounds of dishware and voices filter through.

_That should be us; that should be me._

He’s practically pressed up against the door, hand poised for the button, when a jolt runs through him.

“What the fuck,” he mutters inaudibly to himself.

He flees.

\----------

Moonlight meditation is a wonderful, peaceful habit Ahsoka picked up from Master Plo. Less Jedi are around and one can truly be alone with their thoughts.

So it’s a little surprising when the door hisses open and Anakin seems like he practically stumbles in.

Breaking her concentration, “Hey Sky Guy, what’s up?”

He looks as surprised to see her there as she was by him. It’s downright unusual that he would be up this late though. Sure, on the front he never stops, but when they’re back at the Temple, he sleeps like the dead, to catch up for time lost.

Ahsoka cranes her neck upward; Anakin rubs his eyes, still not quite seeing in front of him.

Mumbling, “Nothing, nothing. Just didn’t know where to go.”

“Don’t you have a bed you usually crash into at this hour?” she teases slightly, pulling back at how out of it he truly seems.

“Yeah,” he shrugs then sits beside her. “What are you up to?”

“What does it look like?”

“Right, right. Sorry.” Then hesitantly, “Do you mind if I join you?”

She can’t account for his strange mood, but for the first time, she feels like the older sibling. Or what younger siblings sometimes need to do for their older ones. Just look out for them.

“Nope, go ahead.”

She slips back into the meditative state, aware of Anakin’s presence next to her. She’s pretty sure he never actually tries to meditate himself, but he doesn’t leave her side.

\----------

The case is made; Chancellor Palpatine heartily agrees to all of it, which makes Padmé all the more wary.

Rush must hear the hesitation in her voice in her case to nominate him as the intermediary. She can practically sense Bail’s glaring disapproval across the chamber.

Her hand hovers over the ‘nay’ button. It would be so easy and could bar him from the position. But unfortunately, everyone would see it in the public record after the session.

\----------

“I can regain control of this, I swear,” Rush says under his breath and through his teeth.

Padmé scoffs, “You’ve been had and you should have known it. Do you really think you’re going to out manipulate Count Dooku?”

Rush looks at her, uncertain of any of it.

Dooku himself does not pay attention to the spat behind him, but rather, surveys the skyline.

“Ah, there we are.”

Hundreds of Separatist ships flood the air. They’re hostages. Or rather, she’s a hostage.

Padmé lets the droids push her to the room which will stand as her makeshift cell.

The comm hidden in the sleeve of her wrist is secure and working.

\----------

When the locked door hisses open, Padmé could have jumped into Anakin’s arms for relief and joy, but Rush hovers behind him.

“Again, huh?”

She can tell he’s trying not to laugh. Only Anakin would find humor in this as ships above and around them fire relentlessly.

“Which way do we go?” she asks, unsure of the tactical layout of their escape. Anakin does not hesitate to grab onto her hand and pull her in the right direction, Rush trailing behind.

An explosion rocks the perched building. Rush stops following them, faltering.

“What are you doing?!” she yells back.

“I’m sorry!” is all he says as he heads to the Separatist side of the battle.

“Yeah, right,” Anakin mutters, but continues forward.

The second blast to hit the building is more than unsteady footing. The whole foundation cracks underneath them, glass shatters everywhere, and their escape careens precipitously over the edge of the mountain.

Padmé loses her hold on Anakin and begins to slide to the seemingly bottomless nothing. Suddenly, she is touching nothing, falling rapidly.

And as quickly as she lost the edge of the building, Anakin has a secure hold on her. She almost makes the mistake of sighing in relief, hundreds of miles above solid ground when she sees how little security Anakin has on the ledge. Most of him dangles as well, legs barely held by anything.

“Come on,” he grunts in strain. “Climb up.”

Padmé has never been more terrified to move an inch, though she needs to go feet. Her hands slowly move up his arm, where tension does not strain muscle. As she goes up, he pulls himself back even slower.

When her stomach collapses onto the last bit of floor, Anakin turns and puts a secure arm around her waist. They crawl weakly upwards until they cannot anymore and she finds herself curled on his lap.

“It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s over now. It’s all over now.”

They are not reassurances for himself, they are entirely for her.

( _The debacle ends with the Republic seizing the bank. Aide will go to war relief, work on the budget may begin soon, Palpatine gets more control, Padmé and other senators wish he would not._

_News eventually filters in Rush defected, living to try another day._

_Reunited that evening, the abandon Padmé and Anakin usually allow themselves is not there. They are fragile, something to be easily broken._ )

**Author's Note:**

> See author bio for discussion on this 'verse.


End file.
